ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline
Volume 8, Number 43
May 14, 1999

In this issue:

Rep. Tauzin Revives Federal Excise Tax Bill

Earlier this week House and Senate companion bills proposing to 
shift E-rate funding from the universal service fund to the 
federal excise tax were introduced. Reps. Billy Tauzin (R-3rd-LA), 
Jerry Weller (R-11th-IL) and Tom Tancredo (R-6th-CO) cosponsored 
the measure in the House as H.R. 1746; Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) 
introduced it in the Senate as S. 1004.

As of this writing the official bill language is not available, 
but it appears similar to proposals floated in the last Congress 
on applying the excise tax to pieces of the universal service 
program.  Statements released by the cosponsors of the legislation 
are confusing at best and conflicting at worst. ALA will provide a 
thorough analysis of the official bill language when it becomes 
available.

Preliminary review of an unofficial staff draft of the bill 
indicates that the entire schools and libraries universal service 
provision would be repealed and replaced with a block grant to 
state education agencies.  The new program would be run through 
the U.S. Department of Education.

The draft also shows that funding for the grants would come from a 
reduced federal excise tax, producing approximately $1.7 billion.  
This level is more than half a million dollars less than the $2.25 
billion that Federal Communications Commission Chairman William 
Kennard recently recommended for the program (see ALAWON v8, n42, 
May 8, 1999).

There are many questions to be raised in considering the impact of 
these proposals on libraries, schools and the E-rate.  ALA will 
closely monitor these bills and will attempt to determine how much 
support there may be in Congress. 

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and Rick Weingarten.